Jan-Sept: Georgia’s Foreign Trade Up by 22.3%
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, October 20
The National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat) published the preliminary estimates of the country's foreign trade turnover on October 19. According to the information, Georgia’s foreign trade turnover in January-September 2021 increased by 22.3% compared to the same period last year, reaching $10.01 billion.
Exports increased by 24% year-over-year, reaching $2.98 billion, while imports grew by 21.6%, to $7.03 billion. Meanwhile, the trade deficit stood at $4.05 billion, constituting 40.4% of the trade turnover in the first 9 months of 2021.
Geostat reported that Georgia’s largest trading partner in the reporting period was Turkey with $1.48 billion, followed by Russia with $1.15 billion, China with $1.08 billion, Azerbaijan with $789.8 million, and the United States with $562.3 million.
The second half of top 10 trading partners which amountex 69.7% of total foreign trade turnover included Ukraine, Armenia, Germany, Bulgaria and Italy.
China was Georgia’s largest trading partner by exports, followed by Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Ukraine. As for the imports, those were Turkey, Russia, China, the U.S., and Azerbaijan
During the reporting period, copper ores and concentrates took the first place in the top ten exports of the country's commodity groups, although it is the only product from the largest commodity groups, whose exports decreased compared to the first 9 months of last year.
The second on the list of export commodities was cars – $338.2 million; followed by ferroalloys – $316.5 million; wine or fresh grapes – $166.8 million; spirits – $105.8 million; mineral waters – $104.1 million; medicines – $72.6 million; nuts – $0 million; nitrogen fertilizers – 65.5 million; t-shirts – $49.12 million; other commodities – $1.1 billion.
The share of domestic exports (export of locally produced goods and services, including those of foreign origin that have been substantially changed through local processing) in total exports constituted 72.7% and amounted to $2.16 billion, 25.9% higher to the same period of 2020.
The top trading partners were: China ($453.8 million), Russia ($388.7 million) and Turkey ($220.8 million).
In January-September 2021, copper ores and concentrates reclaimed the first place in the list of top export items (26.4% ).
The exports of ferroalloys totalled $316.5 million and their share in the total exports amounted to 14.6%, wine of fresh grapes occupied the third place standing at $165.7 million and constituting 7.6% of the total exports.
In terms of import, cars held the first place with $632.5 million; followed by petroleum oils – $576.3 million; copper ores and concentrates – $530.2 million; medicines – $257.3 million; petroleum gases – $207.4 million; telephone sets – $157.6 million; automatic data processing machines – $110.9 million; vehicles for the transport of goods – $86.1 million; vaccines, blood, and immune products – $84.3; wheat and meslin – $67.8 million; other commodities – $4.3 billion.
